The borderland between Pakistan and Afghanistan, due to its strategic importance, has been historically vital for all the powers that retained authority over there. Being a focal point of the great game, this area was utilised by the British to vie with Russia. Later, it jeopardised the relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan after the independence of the former. The most dominant point in this area has been the Durand Line that was demarcated as the result of a treaty between the British and the then Afghan ruler, Amir Abdurrahman in 1893, after the second Anglo-Afghan war.
After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, the legitimacy of the border was challenged by the Afghans, who claimed their right over the area that is currently Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA. The claim changed the discourse of the Durand Line, and being the crux of the matter made the Pak-Afghan relations fragile and strained, to date. It has become a problem like the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India.
Last week, Department of Political Science, University of Peshawar, and the Hanns Seidel Foundation, Islamabad, under the coordination of Dr Muhammad Zubair, organised a conference titled “The Dynamics of Change in Pakistan-Afghanistan region: Politics on Borderland.” This was the fifth conference organised by the said department on a yearly basis at Bara Gali, the summer campus of the University of Peshawar. In four panels of the conference, various scholars from the US, the UK, Germany, Canada, Hungary and Pakistan discussed different topics: border, politics, governance, genre, religion, communities and periphery, gender and silencing. Useful suggestions were made to resolve an assortment of incompatible issues existing in
this region.
One theme that was incalculably felt missing in this conference was the legitimacy of the Durand Line, which has proved to be a catalyst for the overwrought Pak-Afghan ties. Although it is the responsibility of both the governments to provide an amicable solution, nonetheless, for being academicians, scholars should thrash out the crux of the matter to put forward the real picture of this line irrespective of the interests of both the states. Afghanistan has always failed to provide a strong case of the Durand Line at any international forum including the UN. The document or treaty, which according to Afghans was for a hundred-year lease of the said territory, has never been provided anywhere, and that is why their claim makes for a very weak case. Governments may have their vested and national interests; however, scholars should shed light on this contentious issue to reach some conclusion.
Since 9/11, the Pak-Afghan borderland has gained much international attention due to the war on terror, and US intervention in Afghanistan to catch the culprit of the 9/11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden, as well as to topple the Taliban government. Although bin Laden was killed after 10 years of war on terror, Taliban could not be defeated by the US despite modern technology and well-equipped US-led NATO and ISAF forces in Afghanistan. On both sides of the Pak-Afghan border, the situation of security and human rights is abysmal. Sanctuaries of terrorists on both sides have always been a concern for the two governments being used against one another’s interests. In the past, both the governments had allegedly supported anti-state elements to be used against one another.
Afghanistan has always challenged Pakistan’s sovereignty to materialise their vested interests by hook or by crook. The Afghan parliament in 1949 declared all the agreements null and void that had been concluded with the British including the Durand Line, which had no logical basis according to the international law. The Faqir of Ipi was declared the president of the independent Pashtunistan state by a local jirga in Waziristan, FATA, with the support of the Afghan government. Afghanistan was the only country that recognized this illegitimate and ridiculous state. Earlier, the Afghan government had raised the Durand Line issue with the British before their imminent departure from the subcontinent in 1947, which they rejected.
Instead of fuelling illogical issues, both Islamabad and Kabul should mend the fences as dynamics of politics are shifting with the passage of time. Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan is ready to afford antagonism or rivalry as both are facing the menace of terrorism and a fragile economy, which need combined efforts and deliberation respectively to be tackled. Interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan also makes no sense, and should be refrained from.
For making the borderland a peaceful region, people-to-people contact, track II dialogues and academic discussions are the need of the hour to make recommendations and imply models to resolve the existing contentious issues. Until and unless we do not resolve our core issues that we have had from decades, we would not be able to have peace in the region.
The writer is an independent researcher and journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]